Blur (Blur Trilogy) (8 page)

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

It was autumn.

Football season.

Daniel’s time.

He loved all that it was: the rub of the shoulder pads, the dirt beneath
yo
ur fingernails, the taste of blood in
yo
ur mouth after
yo
u took a hard hit, the shot of adrenaline when the ball was snapped, running through the banner the cheerleaders made for the pla
ye
rs, the invigorating evening air, the crowd going craz
y.
Ever
yt
hing.

Tonight, the smell of moist soil, someone’s wood-burning stove, and the faint odor of manure from a dair
y
farm not too far from the football stadium mixed in the gentle evening breeze.

The headache didn’t go awa
y.

This
ye
ar, homecoming was senior night, so all the seniors from the football team, as well as from the cheerleading squad, the cross-countr
y
team, the marching band, and the color guard, all got honored.

Before the game, one b
y
one the
y
met their parents at the fift
y-ya
rd line, where Mr. Ackerman, a newspaper photographer who did this at high schools throughout the area, stood and snapped their pictures. The parents smiled; the football pla
ye
rs all tried to look tough.

The school also took time to recognize the homecoming king and queen. At Beldon High, either juniors or seniors could be chosen, and there’d been talk of nominating Daniel. However, he was onl
y
a junior and he didn’t like the idea of taking that honor awa
y
from a senior, so he’d pulled his name.

Besides, even though he was captain of the football team, that kind of attention off the field made him feel a little awkward.

Beldon’s concession stand was stocked with popcorn, hot chocolate, cand
y
bars, pizza, and nachos with cheese. Some parents had been pushing for “health
y
alternatives,” some sort of vegan health bars, but as far as Daniel knew, the
y’
d never sold an
y
of them
ye
t except to themselves.

Parked be
yo
nd the southern end zone were two emergenc
y
vehicles: Daniel’s dad’s squad car and an ambulance for an
y
trouble, on the field or off it, that might sprout up at a game between these two rivals.

After the pla
ye
rs had warmed up, the school district superintendent went to the announcer’s booth at the top of the Eagles’ stands, took the microphone and offered a moment of silence in honor of Emil
y
and her famil
y.

Then the marching band pla
ye
d the national anthem, the two teams took the field, and the game began.

During the first half, the headache was still bothering Daniel, but he managed to throw for two touchdowns, one in the first quarter, one in the second.

Coulee ran back the second kickoff and then, after the change of possession, hit a thirt
y-
three-
ya
rd field goal with twent
y
seconds left in the half to bring the score to within four.

Home 14.

Visitors 10.

At halftime in the locker room, Coach Warner offered a few words of encouragement to the team as a whole, then the assistant coaches met with their offensive and defensive units.

“B
ye
rs,” said Coach Jostens, “
yo
u need to keep an e
ye
on that defensive end and sta
y
focused on reading
yo
ur ke
ys
. Recognize the coverages on those pass pla
ys
. We’re gonna be throwing the ball a lot in the second half.”

“Yes, Coach.”

He spent a few minutes reviewing blocking schemes for pass protection with the offensive linemen, then turned to the receivers. “We can break this open in the second half. We need
yo
u to run disciplined routes. Crisp. Clean. Got it?”

Nods of agreement from the pla
ye
rs.

However, as Daniel ran onto the field to throw a few balls to loosen up his arm, the headache that’d been lurking somewhere in the back of his mind crawled forward and tried to swallow up all of his focus and attention.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

The third quarter began with the teams exchanging touchdowns and converting the extra points, bringing the score to Eagles 21, Pioneers 17.

Run.

Evade.

Pass and pla
y.

The fans were loud and wild and it was hard to hear, so when Coach wasn’t sending in pla
ys
with the running back, he was holding up signs with the names of college teams on them to signal Daniel which pla
ys
to call.

First and ten, their own thirt
y-
five
ya
rd line.

This time the sign read, “Alabama,” which was a gun slot left slant trail pass. On this pla
y,
Daniel would have four possible receivers to throw to.

In the huddle he told them, “You get open, I’ll get
yo
u the ball.”

The
y
broke huddle and the gu
ys
took their positions. Daniel started in a gun set, gave the count, and the center snapped the ball.

The Pioneers had gone to a 4-2-5 defense and Daniel found his wide receiver, Randall Cox, in the middle of the field for a twelve-
ya
rd gain just before the end of the third quarter.

At the start of the fourth, after a botched running attempt, Daniel found himself at second and ten, at his own fort
y-
nine
ya
rd line.

Beldon High’s band started in with some t
yp
e of chant song and, because of the noise, Coach Warner held up a sign with “Nebraska” written on it, code for a read option right out of the gun.

On a read option, Daniel’s line wouldn’t block the defensive end. If he crashed at the running back, Daniel would keep the ball. If he didn’t crash, he would hand it off to his running back. So at the snap, when the left defensive end came at him fast and hard, Daniel made his read and gave to the running back for a gain of three.

Third and seven.

And that’s when it happened.

Daniel went with gun bunch right, a pla
y
with three receivers on the right side. He liked to hit Cox on a flag route as he angled toward the corner of the field. If he could connect with him it would t
yp
icall
y
be good for a nine- to thirteen-
ya
rd gain.

The
y
lined up.

Daniel gave the count, received the ball from the center, and was scanning for an open receiver when he saw her.

A girl had climbed over the fence and stepped onto the field.

She walked in a stiff, jerk
y,
unnatural wa
y,
keeping her head down. All Daniel could think was wh
y
the refs didn’t throw a flag or tr
y
to stop the pla
y,
to protect her.

But the
y
didn’t, and Daniel couldn’t stop the pla
y
himself.

The defense blitzed.

And as the
y
did, time seemed to grind to a halt and then tick forward slowl
y
again, frame b
y
frame, all within the breadth of a moment.

Ever
yo
ne around him was moving at an impossibl
y
slow speed. He could see what he should never have been able to se
e—t
he fierce expression on the face of one of the advancing defensive linemen, the flicks of grass left in his wake as he came toward him.

He heard the wash of sound from the crowd sharpen and suddenl
y
become clear, almost as if he could distinguish between the separate people, each shouting.

An air horn went off.

He became aware of the lights shining brilliantl
y
down at him, the moon high above the cornfield south of them, the world quickl
y
dropping off into darkness be
yo
nd the bleachers.

And the slow, distinct movement of pla
ye
rs surrounding him.

The onl
y
thing that didn’t change speed was the girl, who lurched forward, with her head still bent forward, staring at the ground.

When she was ma
yb
e ten
ya
rds awa
y,
she lifted her head and looked directl
y
at him and he saw the blank e
ye
s, the gaping mouth, the pale and bloated skin.

Emil
y
Jackson.

The dead girl.

And she was coming straight toward him.

She reached up and grabbed a silver chain necklace she was wearing,
ya
nked it, and it floated right through her neck, leaving a thin streak of fresh blood behind it, as if something reall
y
had passed through her muscle, her bone, her skin.

Then she held up the necklace, a locket dangling from its center, and opened her mouth tr
yi
ng to sa
y
something, but no words came out, just a slurp of ugl
y
water.

Blood oozed from the thin red line encircling her neck.

In a fraction of a second, all Daniel’s senses seemed to become one: the sound of the crowd somehow merged with the damp autumn scent of the field, the sight of the sharp lights, the feel of the smooth-rough leather of the ball in his han
d—e
ver
yt
hing flowed together, leaving him dizz
y
and off balance.

And then time caught up with itself.

Out of the corner of his e
ye
, he saw Cox open downfield, but he didn’t have time to thro
w—t
wo defensive linemen had gotten past their blockers and were closing in.

Fast.

He onl
y
had time to protect the ball as he felt the crushing blow of the two gu
ys
sacking him together, one of them grabbing his face mask, snapping his head around, and when he landed on the ground, he hit hard on his left side, and his head smacked into somethin
g—a
nother helmet, the ground, someone’s knee, he couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.

The huge tackle, the gu
y
who weighed over 260 pounds, landed right on Daniel’s stomach.

And the world went black. Just like it had at Emil
y
Jackson’s
funeral.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Lost in a waking dream.

The girl.

The game.

He heard words as if the
y
were coming from the inside of his head rather than from the outside world:
Sta
y
on this. Seek the truth. Learn what happened.

The team doctor was leaning over him when Daniel opened his e
ye
s: the second time in less than a week that he’d blacked out and awakened to see someone’s anxious face bent over him.

“He
y,
budd
y?
You alright?” the doc asked. “Can
yo
u see me?”

Daniel felt himself nod. “Yeah.” It was different from when he woke up in the church on Tuesda
y.
This time he’d had the air knocked out of him when he was sacked, so he was also short of breath.

“What’s
yo
ur name?”

“M
y
name?” he mumbled.

“Yes.”

“Daniel.”

“And
yo
ur last name?”

“B
ye
rs. Daniel B
ye
rs.”

“Do
yo
u know where
yo
u are, Daniel?”

He turned his head, looked for Emil
y
coming toward him across the field, but didn’t see her. “Yeah. In the stadium. It’s homecoming.”

The doctor held up four fingers. “Daniel, can
yo
u see how man
y
fingers I’m holding up?”

“Four.”

Daniel found his attention shifting to the sidelines, but there was no sign of Emil
y.

Where is she?

Where—

“And what da
y
is it?”

Person, place, and time. Daniel had been pla
yi
ng sports long enough to know that those were the three things the
y
ask a pla
ye
r after he wakes up from blacking out. That, and checking his visual acuit
y,
which the doctor was testing when he asked about the number of fingers he was holding up.

“Frida
y.
September twent
y-
ninth,” Daniel said.

The worr
y
on the man’s face eased. He glanced to the side, making e
ye
contact with Coach Warner, who stood nearb
y.
“Good.” Then he stepped back and a couple of people helped Daniel to his feet.

He was slow getting up, and a little wobbl
y.
Relieved applause from the crowd greeted him as he headed off the field with the coaches beside him.

At least he wasn’t on a stretcher. Randall had told him the Coulee defense was tr
yi
ng to earn a pizza b
y
tackling a pla
ye
r so hard he couldn’t walk off the field. So, no pizzas on that pla
y.

On the wa
y
to the sidelines, Daniel scanned the field, the track encircling it, and the stands, but he didn’t see her. Thank goodness he didn’t see her.

Please don’t let me see her again.

Don’t let me see her ever again.

He knew better than to tell the doctor and his coaches about Emil
y’
s appearance. The
y
would onl
y
think he was hallucinating, that the knock on his head was worse than the
y’
d imagined. And the
y
would undoubtedl
y
do a bunch of tests on him, since the
y’
d be convinced he was seeing things that weren’t there.

And the
y’
d be right.

You are.

He pushed that thought aside.

When he reached the side of the field, he realized the
y’
d alread
y
taken his helmet and hidden it. That was t
yp
ical if the coach or the doctor wanted to make sure a pla
ye
r couldn’t go back on the field.

Daniel was forced to confront the fact that he was not going to be pla
yi
ng an
y
more in the game tonight.

With the recent national attention on head injuries in football, Beldon High’s coaches had gone over all of this with the team at the beginning of the
ye
ar: whenever a pla
ye
r blacks out, it’s classified as a grade-three concussion, and after an
y
concussion, at least in high school,
yo
u’re sidelined for the rest of the game.

There was just too much public concern over repetitive traumatic brain injuries these da
y
s
—e
speciall
y
with teenager
s—t
o chance it.

But still, when he first woke up, Daniel had been hoping that ma
yb
e things would work out for him this time. That he would be the exception.

Usuall
y,
the
y
would even take the gu
y
to the hospital to look him over, but since Daniel had answered all the doctor’s questions correctl
y,
he hoped he wouldn’t have to mess with an
y
of that after the game.

He’d lost consciousness.

Yes.

But he didn’t know if he’d blacked out from the headache or from the shock of seeing Emil
y
again, or ma
yb
e from being hit in the head when he was tackled.

In the end, it reall
y
didn’t matter. He’d seen what he had seen. There was no getting around that.

Twice now.

First speaking to him.

Now holding up her necklac
e—a
fter pulling it through her neck.

Emil
y
Jackson, the dead girl, had appeared to him.

And since no one else was acting strangel
y—
j
ust like at the funeral, when the
y
didn’t respond to what he’d seen in the caske
t—e
videntl
y
she had appeared onl
y
to him.

The gu
ys
on his team fist-bumped him or smacked his shoulder pads and told him the
y
were glad he was oka
y,
and how well he’d pla
ye
d, and how tough he was to walk off the field after a hit like that.

His dad was making his wa
y
across the track, hurr
yi
ng toward Daniel.

“You banged
yo
ur head prett
y
hard out there, Dan. You alright?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“I’m fine,
I—”

But he never finished his sentence. There’d been a face-mask penalt
y
when Daniel was sacked, but pla
y
had resumed on the field and the second-string quarterback had fumbled the ball on the first snap.

Half a dozen pla
ye
rs piled on each other tr
yi
ng to recover the ball and it wasn’t clear which team had gotten it, but the Pioneers gu
ys
were all pointing to their side of the field.

The refs dug through the pile of pla
ye
rs and when the
y
got to the bottom, the
y
made the call.

Pioneers’ ball.

Some of the gu
ys
around Daniel swore in frustration. He felt like doing the same.

Since he’d lost consciousness, even though it was onl
y
for a short time, his dad could have sta
ye
d there at the sidelines with him without an
y
issue
s—b
ut after he’d confirmed that Daniel was alright, he got a call on his radio and left to take care of some sort of altercation near the concession stand.

After his dad left, Daniel watched the dismal ending to the game.

The Pioneers scored.

Hit the extra point.

Took the lead 24 to 21.

Man, he wanted so badl
y
to be out there. He assured his coaches that he was fine, but school polic
y
was clear: after what’d happened, he would be out for the remainder of the game.

After stopping the Eagles in three pla
ys
, Coulee High controlled the ball the rest of the game until the last few seconds, when the
y
hit a field goal to make the score 27 to 21.

The onl
y
hope Beldon had was running back the kickoff, but that didn’t happen.

The
y
failed to score at all.

Lost homecoming.

To the Pioneers, their archrivals.

Because
yo
u were too distracted b
y
a ghost to be focused on the game!

Although there was no wa
y
to be certain, Daniel kne
w—
h
e kne
w
—h
e wouldn’t have fumbled that ball. He would have hit Cox for the first down. And the
y
would have moved downfield and scored. If onl
y
he hadn’t seen Emil
y
Jackson walking toward him, then ever
yt
hing would’ve turned out alright.

What’s going on?

What’s wrong with
yo
u?

Wh
y
are
yo
u seeing these things!

Ma
yb
e if he’d hallucinated
after
the hit to the head he could understand it, at least a little bi
t—b
ut that’s not the wa
y
it had pla
ye
d out. It’d happened beforehand and that’s what had caused him to get sacked in the first place.

Even though he’d smacked his head, it actuall
y
hurt less now than it had before the game. The headache, the one that’d been plaguing him all afternoon, was gone.

He realized that it was similar to when he’d fainted at the funera
l—b
oth times his headache had faded awa
y
after the vision of Emil
y
appeared.

The mood in the locker room was dismal, a sense of collective disappointment, but the team knew better than to blame an
yo
ne in particular.

It was part of Coach’s philosoph
y:
yo
u win or lose as a team and not as individuals. “There’s no one to blame when we lose and no one to thank when we win,” he’d told them more than once. “We’re a team. We don’t point fingers and we don’t bask in glor
y.
We go out there and fight and we take victor
y
or defeat with dignit
y.
We leave ever
yt
hing we have on the field and walk awa
y
with our heads held high. All together. As a team.”

Some people might have discounted it as just t
yp
ical locker room pop ps
yc
holog
y,
but Daniel got the impression that Coach Warner believed wholeheartedl
y
in what he said.

A man Daniel had never seen before was waiting for him outside the locker room. He wore an Ohio State windbreaker.

“Hello, Daniel. M
y
name is Coach Evers. I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes.”